Seòmar agus comataidhean

You are absolutely right: the trade unions will be crucial to the development of the national care service. I spent a lot of time working with them over the summer, and I would expect that work to continue.

I have said a number of times that one of the reasons why the social care workforce is so disadvantaged is that it is largely female and barely unionised. It is 83 per cent female and there is less than 19 per cent unionisation. I would like there to be a stronger role for unionisation within the workforce, in addition to me working with the unions to develop the national care service.

In terms of the shared agreement, I have mentioned the national care board. The board will be broader than just ministers, local authority representatives and NHS representatives. I would expect the voice of employees—the voice of people who work in social care—to be at that table as well. I would envisage an on-going space at the table for dialogue with them.

We envisage that the national social work agency, which will not be a union but a professional organisation, will be a strong voice for social workers in the national care service. Social workers are key to effective delivery of the ambition that we have set out. There will be a strong role for people who work in the sector, not just in the development of the national care service but in the on-going delivery and the national governance of that delivery.

As I said, I cannot commit to those things yet, because we are still discussing it. Today, I am laying out how I envisage that taking shape.

I am wondering which of my officials is best placed to answer that. We are working with the unions on amendments.

Co-design delivers a sense of empowerment—it really is about empowering people. It is about handing the power over to them and saying, “If you were in charge, what would you do? How would you do it? How would you design a service?” We hear from people time and again about where things go wrong and how difficult that feels, so it is about making sure that we get it right from the conception stage rather than just rubbing the edges off delivery. I have heard from people who are involved that it feels very different. They say to me, “We have been saying these things for years; it’s not like we’re saying anything new.” The difference is that the system, which includes us all, is now listening, which is an important part of the process.

Definitely. The first time that I met the social covenant group, it corrected my language. I made the rookie error of talking about person-centred care, and members of the group said, “Excuse me, minister, it is person-led care,” so they absolutely want to be in charge. It was a useful early lesson for me to listen carefully to what people are saying and always to make sure that they are in charge and as independent as they possibly can be. That is part of the purpose of designing the bill in this way.

We will certainly consider it. I will not give a promise today, because we need to discuss that with drafters and get technical guidance on whether doing so is a possibility, but we will certainly consider it and get back to you about whether it is possible.

We are in exceptionally difficult fiscal times at the moment. I do not think that there has ever been a more challenging time to be in government in terms of finding the money to deliver the commitments that we have made, but I am operating on a proceed-until-apprehended basis. Nobody has told me that we are not doing that, so, as far as I am concerned, we are definitely doing it.

Absolutely. We will certainly reflect more on how we can highlight that to folk. You are absolutely right that there is a lot of detail out there.

That points to the fact that, as I keep saying, one size does not fit all. One general thing that we are trying to do with the bill is to make the approach more person centred—or person led, to correct my language as per the social covenant group guidance. We want it to be flexible and we want it to work for the people who need the support, so we will need to work really hard on the ground to ensure that there is a person-led approach to carer support.

I have been asked before about a definition of “sufficient breaks”. We could toil and come to an agreement on the definition of that, but the more important thing is whether the person who is accessing the support feels that they have had sufficient breaks.

As in all things, we need to build something that is flexible, person centred and person led, and which delivers the difference that we are hoping to see. That will be tough. At the moment, as you say, we have a variety of options across the country, some of which are easier to access than others and some of which are more enticing than others. However, we are already working pretty hard right across the board to improve that situation.

I do not know whether either of my officials wants to say anything.

One thing that we are doing is putting a lot of extra money into social care. We have made a commitment during this session of Parliament to increase the amount that we spend on social care by a quarter, which would mean £840 million going into social care. We are already at £800 million, so we are ahead of the trajectory on that and are vastly increasing the amount of money that we put into social care.

If I am correct about what you are asking, it is about whether we should pursue structural change at a time when the system is under so much pressure. Derek Feeley was clear that, if we just keep doing the same thing again and again, we will just keep getting the same outcomes, and we are clear that the system is not working as we want it to for the people who are accessing care at the moment. We need a transformational whole-system change to be delivered to meet the aspirations of the nation.

Again, I challenge that narrative. We are not centralising social care across Scotland. I was very clear about that when I went to Shetland. We were really impressed by the level of integration that is being achieved there and the work that is going on between the NHS and the local authority to ensure that a cohesive package of social care is available. I joked with them, saying, “Maybe what we’ll do is pick up the Shetland way and roll that out across Scotland; rather than us coming and imposing the Edinburgh way on Shetland, we’ll take the Shetland way and roll it out all over Scotland.”

However, even in the room at that time, we recognised that, while there are things that Shetland is doing excellently, there are things that it needs national support with. That is where we want to make the difference.

An example is information sharing. A little bit of primary legislation is required to make that easier. When we engage with people with lived experience, we hear that they are tired of telling their stories again and again to everyone whom they meet in the system. The ability to share information safely and appropriately within the system needs to be unlocked centrally, by central Government. We can do that, and it will enable better local delivery.

There are things that we can do to help. Another thing that we talked about was the challenge of recruiting professional social workers in Shetland. There are definitely things that we can do nationally to support that and make it easier to recruit and train by taking away some of the barriers to entry to training that exist in places such as Shetland.

I am keen to hear what the challenges are in every local area and to see what we can do nationally to unlock them. I am not interested in micromanaging from Edinburgh the entirety of social care all over the country. I have said that time and again.

I live in the rural west Highlands. Social care in Ullapool, where I live, looks very different from social care in Inverness, but both are within NHS Highland. Even within local authorities, if they are to be responsive to the needs of their communities, their geographies and the situations that they face in terms of labour shortages, they will have to be flexible in how they deliver. We are keen to create a system that supports that and empowers people while maintaining national standards. There should be a clear expectation that, wherever people are in the country, they know the standards and the quality of services that they can expect to access, even though services might look a little different, depending on where they are accessed.